“Whip from the hip” was the title of an article Ken Clark a well-known sprint coach and researcher, in conjunction with other researchers has just published in Biology Open. The team was interested in evaluating the relationship between running speed, thigh angular motion, and vertical force determinants. What they found was that all measures of thigh angular velocity had strong positive correlations to speed (all R2>0.70, p<0.0001) and lower limb vertical velocity at touchdown (all R2=0.75, p<0.0001). They concluded that thigh angular velocity was strongly related to running speed.
It seems intuitive that increasing thigh angular velocity would increase speed. Nonetheless, these findings are interesting in light of my previous post on swing phase loading with wearable resistance (WR). Overloading the hip musculature with WR on the shorts or calf sleeves would seem ideal for targeting thigh angular velocity changes. That is, such strength training provides a direct angular/rotational overload to the hip, specific to sprinting. Outcome – more whip from the hip?
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